MOUNT VERNON — Fundraising can be a bear during a recession, unless the hogs show up. And we’re not talking about pork.
By hogs, we mean large Harley-Davidsons, as well as all of the other varieties of motorcycle, which participated in the Tenth Annual Farmstead Poker Run on Saturday.
Begun in 1999, Dick and Evowne Dailey’s idea of a “poker run” benefit for bikers to help raise money for Hospice of Knox County started with 40 bikers and raised $1,300. But the event has grown each year, until last year’s run featured 500 riders and raised $13,000. With the current slump in the economy, there were doubts about how well this year’s event would fare. Preliminary figures looked good.
A poker run is an event originally invented by speedboat enthusiasts, where the participants all have to travel to a number of designated locations. In a small poker run, the participant draws a card at each location. With the number of motorcyclists involved in the Farmstead Poker Run, Dailey has riders instead get a paper signed at each of the four stations on the 100-mile circuit, to show they followed the course. When the riders return to Farmstead, on Martinsburg Road just outside of Mount Vernon, they draw their poker hands, with the best hand winning a $200 cash prize.
The actual run was followed up by an evening of activities, including food, bike games, an auction, live music from the band Chapter 13 and camping.
The auction included a quilt from Pat Davis which incorporated all the previous year’s promotional T-shirt designs, a large Longaberger basket, and a specially made shadow box celebrating the biker lifestyle. The 4-inch deep walnut and black felt box included a miniature replica of the “Easy Rider” chopper from the Franklin Mint, a David Mann photo, a Harley-Davidson patch, a Sturgis belt buckle, a miniature Route 66 metal sign, and, for a humorous touch, miniature beer cans littering the floor.
